Should Supervision be Abolished?

1. Should Supervision be Abolished? Chris Duggan

2. What is Supervision? • The evaluation of teachers widely mandated • Control teachers’ instructional behaviors • Bureaucratic Function • Inspection • Control • Direct • Oversee

3. What was Supervision? • Conventional Supervision • Classroom observation • Post-observation conference • Written report on file • Directive control • Teacher Perceptions • Dehumanizing • Intrusive • Invalid

4. “Effective Teaching” • Characteristics of effective teachers: • Known • Recognizable • Dichotomous • Stability • Consistency

5. Assumptions • Generally accepted procedures • Positive reinforcement • Setting clear goals • Every class the same • Teaching = learning prescribed syllabus • One superior method of teaching • All students learn the same • Supervisor has requisite expertise

6. Observation • Effective teaching • Not characterized by one set of behaviors • Context-dependent • Observations of teachers are used for evaluation • Need some measure of consistency • No pre-specified procedure • Subjective commentary

7. Tradition • Traditional inspectorial model • Inherited by many former British colonies • Out-dated • Supervisory strategies for improving teaching and learning • Systematic revision and validation

8. Blase, 1990 • Address problematic nature of administrative control • Open-ended questionnaires • 276 teachers • Discussed political practices of school principals • Two major strategies emerged • Control • Protection

9. Blase, 1990 • Negative effects on teacher involvement and performance • Morale • Decisional discretion • Instruction • School-wide negative effects • Morale • Involvement • School Pride • Undermine school-based academic and social standards. • Anger was the predominant reaction

10. Blase, 1990 • Many control practices violated basic: • Professional norms • Professional expectations • Educational standards • Human rights

11. Supervision, What is it Good for? • Absolutely NOTHING? • Reform is Needed

12. Functions • Administrative • Professional Competence Evaluation • Instructional Development

13. What is a Professional? • Historically: • Acquisition and application • Complex body of knowledge and skill • Orientation toward the public • Emphasis on an ethical or altruistic approach toward clients.

14. Professional Competence Evaluation • Frequent • High-stakes • Defined as • Measurements • Interpretation of data • Judgment of fitness to practice autonomously • Professional students behave in accord with their perceptions of how they will be evaluated

15. Professional Competence Evaluation • Evaluation of competence for professional practice • Not a static • Not one-time event • Most professions • Evaluation is sequential affair • Occurs at stages of selection for education • During professional education • Certification or licensure

16. Professional Competence Evaluation • General Dissatisfaction: • Narrow range of practice situations. • What professionals actually do is very complicated • Biased toward assessment of acquired knowledge • Tradition of academic achievement testing • Devote little attention to direct assessment of practical skills • Indirect, vicarious impressions of skill acquisition • Little attention given to assessment of professional or personal qualities • Honesty, judgment, work habits, maturity • Validity

17. What is Professional Competence? • Evaluators need to know before fitness for practice can be determined • Expert opinion • Practice setting • Clientele • Problems encountered • Nature of the professional role • Notjust the information experts think beginners should master

18. What is Professional Competence? • Senior professionals identified • Formally or informally • Serve on committees • Responsibility to develop evaluation measures and procedures for entry into a profession

19. What is Professional Competence? • Professional association • Through expert committee • Operational Definition • Content of tests • Passing standards • Common in the health

20. What is Professional Competence? • Study personnel evaluation practices • Derive up-to-date criteria and procedures • Democratically established criteria • From representatives of different groups • Common interest • More likely to be: • Valid • Useful • Feasible • Accurate • The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (1988) • Report, The Personnel Evaluation Standards: How to Assess Systems for Evaluating Educators • Addresses the competence evaluation problem

21. Measurement Issues • Gold Standard • Reliability • Validity • Connoisseurship • Rules of evidence

22. The Gold Standard • Error-free measurement • Scientific fact that is as close to truth as one can expect • AERA/APA/ National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (1985). • Definition of content • Construct interpretations of tests for certification • Importance of estimating the reliability of decisions (not the reliability of test data) • Consequences of failure • Overall readiness assessment • Develop a performance profile

23. Reliability • Estimate of how much the variance in observed scores is a result of variance in true scores • Assume error scores are uncorrelated • Correlation between two sets of observed scores must reflect the presence of true score variance • 2 sets of scores will be correlated only if they have some factor in common (the influence of true scores) • The degree of positive intercorrelation • Indication of the reliability of those scores

24. Validity • The extent to which an instrument measures what it purports to measure • Little research done on validation • Method variance in competence measures • Assume variance is due to enduring traits • Rule-out measurement methods as a source of variation • Professional competence is neither visible nor tangible • Presence or absence inferred • good indicators of competence • Most common • Test of acquired knowledge

25. Connoisseurs • Reliance on the judgment of skilled connoisseurs • Not all features of professional practice can be quantified. • There is no "one best answer" to a professional problem or question • Connoisseurs are unbiased, fair in rendering decisions about candidate competence, and effective at communicating their judgments. • Certified Accountant • Fulfill a set of educational and apprenticeship requirements • Receive a passing mark on the Uniform Final Examination • Work that real accountants do • Each question is scored by a Board of • Prepare and calibrate its examiners • Room to use experienced professional judgment

26. Rules of Evidence • The nature of good data changes • Multiple-choice tests of acquired knowledge • Narrow range of evaluation • Broader definition of evidence is needed • Subjectivity • Qualitative judgment • More than one right answer.

27. Bloom, 2011 • Identical twins • Gold standard for equality of: • Genetics • Environment • Marked inconsistency • Organizational management of the classroom • Discipline • Workload • Miscommunication and inconsistency • Poor communication of expectations • Failure to effectively supervise • Adversely affected the quality of instruction at the school • School climate • Masked a variety of problems

28. Bloom, 2011 Directive Control Non-Directive

29. Throw out the baby with the bath water?

30. Teemant, Wink, & Tyra, 2011 • Classrooms are becoming more and more ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse • Teachers are faced with the challenge of providing equitable instruction to all individuals

31. Teemant, Wink, & Tyra, 2011 • The Five Standards Instructional Model (FSIM) • The Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence • Sociocultural model • Vital for teaching in ethnically diverse classrooms • Five-point Standards Performance Continuum (SPC) • Observation rubric • Valid and reliable • Objectively measure the integrity with which teachers employ the FSIM

32. Teemant, Wink, & Tyra, 2011 • Empirically validated, performance-based model • Individualized coaching sessions, following a 30hr workshop • Increase teachers’ use of the Five Standards Instructional Model • The individualized professional development interventions were effective at increasing teacher adherence to the Five Standards Instructional Model

33. Teemant, Wink, & Tyra, 2011 • Longitudinal design • Inference of cause and effect • Increase in teacher use of the FSIM • Attributed to the coaching manipulation, rather than differences in maturation • FSIM • Empirically validated • Clearly defined pedagogy • SPC • Objective, performance-based observation rubric • Performance targets are clearly defined

34. Teemant, Wink, & Tyra, 2011 • Represents the future of developmental supervision • Identified empirically validated performance targets for teachers • Provides a method for supervisors to promote and objectively evaluate change • Flexible and individualized nature of the coaching model • The FSIM and the SPC could provide supervisors with a useful tool • Articulating performance-goals in such a way that both teachers and supervisors are explicitly aware of what is being evaluated. • The FSIM also allows for teachers and supervisors to share ideas, regardless of initial skill.

35. Do we need supervision? • YES • Professional Competence • Instructional Development • Developmental Supervision • Applying certain knowledge, interpersonal, and technical skills • Direct assistance, group development, curriculum development, professional development • Teach in a collective, purposeful manner uniting organizational goals and teacher needs to acquire improved student learning.